A Pilot Study on the Cross-Cultural Acceptance of Technology

In this period of technological innovations, there is no doubt that the study of technology acceptance and diffusion is important. There have been numerous advancements in this regard. However, there has been relatively little cross-cultural research done in this domain. The purpose of this study is to explore the role that cultural differences play in the acceptance of technology and in particular, a popular email service provider, Gmail©. A mixed methods approach was followed for this study. Data regarding perception of Gmail© between participants in India (collectivist) and the U.S. (individualistic) was collected using online questionnaires. Correlational analysis and content analysis were used to analyze the data. While there was no statistical significance regarding ease of use, content analysis found that ‘ease of use’ could be an important factor for the Indian sample. Difference in loyalty towards Gmail© was found to be approaching significance (at α=0.05). ‘Ease of acquiring’ was found to be important for the acceptance of technology for both cultures studied implying that designers and producers must make it easy for potential users from any country to get their product. An interesting trend noticed was that the Indian sample identified social factors like the chat system Gtalk©, if Gmail© was exciting, and if it was good when they compared it to other systems, while the U.S. sample seemed to find work-related factors, like if it was integrated across multiple platforms or if it was a requirement with the organization, to be important. The U.S. sample also brought up the price and brand name a lot more than the Indian sample.